Forget Side Sauces: This Is What Olive Garden Pros Dip Their Breadsticks In

When it comes to Olive Garden's breadsticks, you already know that they're pretty much the best appetizer on the menu, plus an endless amount come with your meal. If you want to make them even more fun, you can tack on a side of various pasta sauces to dip them in. (You'll end up eating a ton of breadsticks this way; I can tell you this from personal experience.) While the dipping sauces are an add-on straight from the menu, one TikTok user decided to tinker with the breadstick dipping sauce idea even further.

TikToker ketohalfasser posted a video of their dining companion pulling a more advanced move with the breadstick, dipping it into a side of not pasta sauce, but rather, Olive Garden's famous salad dressing. It didn't stop there, though. The now-dampened breadstick then went into a plate of freshly grated Romano cheese, which is what your Olive Garden server will happily shower you with. The Italian dressing and cheese combo is certainly a much brighter pop of flavor than the traditional pasta sauces and an off-the-beaten-path option if you're an Olive Garden vet who's looking for something new.

While you may not be able to bake yourself endless amounts of breadsticks at home, you can try this at your own kitchen table. That's because you can buy Olive Garden's signature dressing right at the grocery store, which is where most of the punchy flavor will come from. (We highly recommend against the light dressing, however.) As someone who picks up the bottled dressings now and then, if it isn't actually identical, it convincingly tastes so.

As for the Romano, you'll simply want to make sure you use an Olive Garden-style rotary grater in order to replicate its texture. A microplane can also work in a pinch; just be prepared to do a little more manual labor to grate a large mound of cheese. Most slim frozen breadsticks should work too, but you may want to add a little brush of garlic butter on at the end. Though it does seem like a tiny bit of additional work just for a bit of novelty, this little combo should at least be cheaper than a whole visit to Olive Garden. Plus it'll taste like you're there too.